Vacation Reading

I used to mock my mother for reading cookbooks, but, apparently, I am my mother's son, because on my recent vacation to Maine, I read a cookbook.

Not just any cookbook, but Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, Ph.D. This cookbook follows the philosophy of Weston A. Price, whose book, Nutrition and Physical Degeneration (which I partially reviewed) inspired her cookbook and led to the creation of the Weston A. Price foundation. In brief, Price traveled around the world in the 1930's and studied traditional cultures to see what gave them their perfect health. (The photos in the book are amazing).  He came up with a number of recommendations, and this cookbook puts those recommendations into action.

The "cookbook" is actually much more than a cookbook. The first seventy-five or so pages review nutritional science and challenge many existing ideas, such as the lipid hypothesis. It is a book on how to cook in the traditional, healthy manner as much as a list of recipes and the book is loaded with a lot of information in the sidebars on each page.

The authors go into a great amount of detail on how to prepare ingredients for each recipe. For example, how to soak grains, such as wheat, to remove the problematic phytates; how to prepare bone broth; why you should consume raw milk and cream; how to (and why it is necessary) produce whey and homemade cream cheese; and how to cook with organ meats, among many other topics. There is a source of supplies in the back and while not strictly low carb, it is an overall healthy philosophy of eating. The cookbook shuns processed foods of all types (e.g., refined flour and processed sugar) and in all things seeks to emulate how traditional societies prepared foods for perfect health. While not completely low carb, most of what is in the cookbook aligns quite nicely with the low carb philosophy because the authors' philosophy on eating is very similar.

Personally, I found the cookbook very exciting to read and cannot wait to try out many of the recipes. But I do think it will be time consuming and require a lot of advanced planning. For example, to make biscuits, I would need to spend a week preparing a sour dough starter, plus soak the wheat for a few days until it starts to sprout; then dry the sprouted wheat, before grinding it. That might also take the better part of a week. I can see that this method of cooking will require a lot of advanced planning.

Jimmy Moore demonstrated that raw milk had almost no effect on his blood sugar levels, so I am very curious to see how sprouted or soaked wheat will effect my blood sugars. I suspect I will be pleasantly surprised.

All in all, this was a very worthwhile reading experience. I wish I had known what I know now when we were raising children, as I am sure I would have had a bigger influence on what was prepared for family meals. (For purposes of clarity, my wife did most of the cooking when the kids were at home and tried to cook in as healthy a manner as she knew how, based on the available information. There is no criticism of her cooking leveled or implied in this blog entry).

Letter III: Aren't Saturated Fats Dangerous?

This is part III in a series of hypothetical letters to my doctor.


Dear Doctor,

In our last meeting, you expressed concern that I was eating too much saturated fat in my low carb diet, and that it might be harmful, or even cause a heart attack. This is probably the most common question I deal with when people learn I follow the low carb lifestyle. I am, however, a bit surprised that an educated person such as yourself raised the concern.

The short answer: no, saturated fats are not dangerous and when eaten as part of a proper low carb diet, they probably won't cause a heart attack. The idea that saturated fats and cholesterol lead to heart disease is called the "lipid hypothesis."  Gary Taubes wrote a whole book in 2007 debunking the lipid hypothesis. And before Taubes' book, Sally Fallon and Mary Enig wrote a book in 1999 debunking that myth. And before Fallon and Enig, Michael Eades, M.D. and his wife, Mary Dan Eades, M.D. wrote a book debunking the lipid hypothesis in 1996. All of these books delved deeply into the empirical medical literature and found no empirical evidence to support the lipid hypothesis.

But there is even more recent evidence.  Three recent studies all concluded that low carb diets actually improved markers of metabolic health. None of the three support the lipid hypothesis. Dr. Malcolm Kendrick demolishes the lipid hypothesis in 1 minute and 17 seconds. One study found no association between eating eggs and cardiovascular disease. Another study found that dairy consumption was not associated with cardiovascular disease. Yet another study showed that children who ate full fat cream and other saturated fats were healthier than children who did not.  Finally, a meta analysis of 21 studies of 348,000 people over an average of 14 years concluded there was no relationship between eating saturated fats and cardiovascular diseases such as heart attacks and stroke. Even the mainstream media is now hinting that we have been mislead by the lipid hypothesis, and that carbohydrates, not fat, may be the real problem. 

The most recent book I have read demolishing the lipid hypothesis is one you ought to read, as it is targeted to physicians. It is called The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living, by Jeff Volek, Ph.D., R.D. and Stephen D. Phinney, M.D., Ph.D. This book takes you into the inner workings of the low carb lifestyle and addresses head on many of the myths surrounding it, such as the lipid hypothesis.

So thank you for your concern about my cardiovascular health, but I do not think the low carb diet which is high in saturated fats will cause me to die of a heart attack any time soon.

Sincerely,